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Insidet Amen§And rubber chicken
Out: Making allies, confronting foes
—See page A-7—
The original fantasy island
A Key West Halloween
by William Kloxnan
KEY WEST—This is the original fan-tasy
island, a town of carpenters and
termites, home of the Margaret Truman
Laundrette, the only emerald store in
the U.S., and Tutti and Frutti's ice
cream shop, which advertises "Rush-
Candy-Gum-Cruise-Blueboy-Hot-S and-wiches."
Key West has always been permis-sive,
its several communities living
insularly, keeping to themselves. Illegal
gambling flourished until Havana
closed • to tourism. Ten years ago you
could buy psychedelics in the street
from old Cubans who at all day at the
cab stand on Duval Street playing
checkers. Crates of high-grade Colum-bian
"sea weed" from wrecked smuggler
boats regularly washed to shore.
Stepped-up enforcement has pushed
the smugglers up the Atlantic Coast as
far as North Carolina and Virginia
Beach, decentralizing the trade and cut-ting
Key West's share of the profits.
"There's still drug money around," one
resident says, "but it's in the hands of
the Cuban dealers, not the carpenters
and plumbers who used to get ,S2500 a
day for unloading boats and came to
- town to spend it."
Florida's service-oriented economy;
based on such- things as tourism and
medicine„ is booming despite the slide
toward recession elsewhere. The Key
West Redevelopment Agency hopes to
-acquire the Kev West Navy base, which
has been declared surplus by the Gen-eral
Services Administration, Cruise
liners could ,use the hase's deep water
harbor. The Department of Defense
will decide in March whether to let it
go. Some here think DOD will hold
onto the property. "San Diego is full,"
one observer said. "Norfolk is full.
Where are they going to put the 600
ship navy they're talking about?"
Key West tourism has had a series of
bad breaks over the past three years,
including random street violence against
Continued on page A-6
50e OUTSIDE OF D.C./BALTIMORE AREAS
THE GAY NEWSPAPER OF THE NATION'S CAPITAL
Hickey objects to
Gay ministry group
by Steve Martz
The Roman Catholic Archbishop of
Washington last week took steps to iso-late
an area Catholic group engaged in
ministry to homosexuals, making it
clear that he considers the group's
approach to homosexuality to be incon-sistent
with the "authentic teaching" of
the Catholic Church.
At the same time, Archbishop James
A. Hickey caught Gay observers by sur-prise
when he stated that "without
doubt the Church must minister to the
homosexuals in our society" and
announced his intention to establish his
own ministry to Washington Gay
Catholics "so as to offer appropriate
pastoral understanding and support."
Until last week, Gay Catholics had been
unsure where the archbishop stood on
any of the thorny issues posed by homo-sexual
Catholics.
Hickey's statements came in a series
of letters addressed to local and national
Church leaders that were sent less than
a month before the Mt. Rainier based
New Ways ministry — a Catholic Gay
ministry group which has found itself at
odds with Church authorities on more
than one occasion — is scheduled to
hold a symposium on "Homosexuality
and the Catholic Church." Copies of
several of these letters have been
obtained by The Washington Blade. In
the letters, Hickey expressed doubt as
to whether New Ways directors Father
Robert Nugent and Sister Jeannine
-ramick adhere to official Catholic
teaching on homosexuality and said he
"cannot approve or authorize New
Ways Ministry or the Symposium they
plan to present."
"I rnust inform you," he wrote to
other American bishops, "that I have
found their position ambiguous and
Washington Archbishop James A.
Hickey plans an "appropriate"
ministry to Gay Catholics.
unclear with regard to the morality of
homosexual activity. While presenting
the teaching of the Church as contained
in the Declaration on Sexual Ethics of
the Sacred Congregation for the Doc-trine
of the Faith (1975) they present as
viable options other opinions which
hold that it is morally permissible for
homosexuals to live together in a sexu-ally
active stable relationship."
Official Catholic teaching on homo-sexuality
— as expressed in the 1975
Vatican Declaration — holds that
although the homosexual orientation
itself is morally neutral, the genital
expression of it in any context is sinful.
However, some respected Catholic
theologians dispute that blanket con-
Continued on page A-3
Election
results,
reactions
are mixed
by Brad Green -
Initial reactions of local Gay leaders
to the November 3 area election returns
were varied, as were the fortunes of the
candidates they had supported.
"We as a community fell down
yesterday," complained Gertrude Stein
Democratic Club President Tom Charl-ton,
speaking of the D.C. election
results the morning after. "I worked a
very Gay precinct (#87) in Ward 6 from
7 a.m. to 8 p.m.," he said, "and there
were damn few Gay voters. Too many
people stood around in bars rather than
voting."
Chorlton's pessimism was not shared,
however, by Jeff Levi, who heads the
Gay Activists Alliance's Elections Pro-ject.
"I'd be reluctant to make that sort
of generalization until I've seen the
numbers," he cautioned. "The larger
the general turnout the less impact a
Gay bloc vote will have," he explained.
Tuesday's voter turnout in D.C. was
considerably heavier than normal for an
off year election. Richard Maulsby, a
past president of the Stein Club and
veteran of many local election cam-paigns
concurred: "The results are not
very alarming. It was not an election
that was perceived as something we had
a large stake in." Nonetheless, he said
that, "If we are not careful, we are
going to be perceived as paper tigers."
Levi allowed that he was "deeply dis-appointed"
by the defeat of Alaire Rief-
Continued on page A-5

Insidet Amen§And rubber chicken
Out: Making allies, confronting foes
—See page A-7—
The original fantasy island
A Key West Halloween
by William Kloxnan
KEY WEST—This is the original fan-tasy
island, a town of carpenters and
termites, home of the Margaret Truman
Laundrette, the only emerald store in
the U.S., and Tutti and Frutti's ice
cream shop, which advertises "Rush-
Candy-Gum-Cruise-Blueboy-Hot-S and-wiches."
Key West has always been permis-sive,
its several communities living
insularly, keeping to themselves. Illegal
gambling flourished until Havana
closed • to tourism. Ten years ago you
could buy psychedelics in the street
from old Cubans who at all day at the
cab stand on Duval Street playing
checkers. Crates of high-grade Colum-bian
"sea weed" from wrecked smuggler
boats regularly washed to shore.
Stepped-up enforcement has pushed
the smugglers up the Atlantic Coast as
far as North Carolina and Virginia
Beach, decentralizing the trade and cut-ting
Key West's share of the profits.
"There's still drug money around," one
resident says, "but it's in the hands of
the Cuban dealers, not the carpenters
and plumbers who used to get ,S2500 a
day for unloading boats and came to
- town to spend it."
Florida's service-oriented economy;
based on such- things as tourism and
medicine„ is booming despite the slide
toward recession elsewhere. The Key
West Redevelopment Agency hopes to
-acquire the Kev West Navy base, which
has been declared surplus by the Gen-eral
Services Administration, Cruise
liners could ,use the hase's deep water
harbor. The Department of Defense
will decide in March whether to let it
go. Some here think DOD will hold
onto the property. "San Diego is full,"
one observer said. "Norfolk is full.
Where are they going to put the 600
ship navy they're talking about?"
Key West tourism has had a series of
bad breaks over the past three years,
including random street violence against
Continued on page A-6
50e OUTSIDE OF D.C./BALTIMORE AREAS
THE GAY NEWSPAPER OF THE NATION'S CAPITAL
Hickey objects to
Gay ministry group
by Steve Martz
The Roman Catholic Archbishop of
Washington last week took steps to iso-late
an area Catholic group engaged in
ministry to homosexuals, making it
clear that he considers the group's
approach to homosexuality to be incon-sistent
with the "authentic teaching" of
the Catholic Church.
At the same time, Archbishop James
A. Hickey caught Gay observers by sur-prise
when he stated that "without
doubt the Church must minister to the
homosexuals in our society" and
announced his intention to establish his
own ministry to Washington Gay
Catholics "so as to offer appropriate
pastoral understanding and support."
Until last week, Gay Catholics had been
unsure where the archbishop stood on
any of the thorny issues posed by homo-sexual
Catholics.
Hickey's statements came in a series
of letters addressed to local and national
Church leaders that were sent less than
a month before the Mt. Rainier based
New Ways ministry — a Catholic Gay
ministry group which has found itself at
odds with Church authorities on more
than one occasion — is scheduled to
hold a symposium on "Homosexuality
and the Catholic Church." Copies of
several of these letters have been
obtained by The Washington Blade. In
the letters, Hickey expressed doubt as
to whether New Ways directors Father
Robert Nugent and Sister Jeannine
-ramick adhere to official Catholic
teaching on homosexuality and said he
"cannot approve or authorize New
Ways Ministry or the Symposium they
plan to present."
"I rnust inform you," he wrote to
other American bishops, "that I have
found their position ambiguous and
Washington Archbishop James A.
Hickey plans an "appropriate"
ministry to Gay Catholics.
unclear with regard to the morality of
homosexual activity. While presenting
the teaching of the Church as contained
in the Declaration on Sexual Ethics of
the Sacred Congregation for the Doc-trine
of the Faith (1975) they present as
viable options other opinions which
hold that it is morally permissible for
homosexuals to live together in a sexu-ally
active stable relationship."
Official Catholic teaching on homo-sexuality
— as expressed in the 1975
Vatican Declaration — holds that
although the homosexual orientation
itself is morally neutral, the genital
expression of it in any context is sinful.
However, some respected Catholic
theologians dispute that blanket con-
Continued on page A-3
Election
results,
reactions
are mixed
by Brad Green -
Initial reactions of local Gay leaders
to the November 3 area election returns
were varied, as were the fortunes of the
candidates they had supported.
"We as a community fell down
yesterday," complained Gertrude Stein
Democratic Club President Tom Charl-ton,
speaking of the D.C. election
results the morning after. "I worked a
very Gay precinct (#87) in Ward 6 from
7 a.m. to 8 p.m.," he said, "and there
were damn few Gay voters. Too many
people stood around in bars rather than
voting."
Chorlton's pessimism was not shared,
however, by Jeff Levi, who heads the
Gay Activists Alliance's Elections Pro-ject.
"I'd be reluctant to make that sort
of generalization until I've seen the
numbers," he cautioned. "The larger
the general turnout the less impact a
Gay bloc vote will have," he explained.
Tuesday's voter turnout in D.C. was
considerably heavier than normal for an
off year election. Richard Maulsby, a
past president of the Stein Club and
veteran of many local election cam-paigns
concurred: "The results are not
very alarming. It was not an election
that was perceived as something we had
a large stake in." Nonetheless, he said
that, "If we are not careful, we are
going to be perceived as paper tigers."
Levi allowed that he was "deeply dis-appointed"
by the defeat of Alaire Rief-
Continued on page A-5